Thursday, April 30, 2009

Allan Bloom on Nietzsche

In 1983 Allan Bloom gave a lecture at Boston College on the importance of Nietzsche in American society. Bloom focused his lecture on how Nietzsche language has become integrated into all aspects of American life. Without knowing the philosophy taxi drivers, janitors, and etc. can be heard using the dark language of Nietzsche. He makes a joke that all the students that enter his office having psychotic breakdowns all start quoting Nietzsche. Bloom is most interested in how America has managed to completely morph Nietzsche's dark viewpoints on the modern democratic man to fit into the American ideals. The Deconstructionism of Nietzsche has allowed America to make his idea of Nihilism into a way to happiness. Americans say to believe in his theory of the chaos unconscious mind but also believe that science can understand the unconscious which is a complete contradiction to Nietzsche's philosophy. The lecture was given 5 years before he published The Closing of the American Mind but many of the points that he would further explore and define are brought up in the lecture. Bloom often refers to his students no longer having any really opinions or beliefs. They esteem to abstract morals, feel what they are told to feel, and do not question what is going on around them. Bloom often brings up his enjoyment of bringing up questions or assigning readings purely to gage the reactions it causes within the students. He has slowly witnessed the bow within us that is strung together by the conflicting ideals of Christianity and Classical Greeks allowing man to shot beyond what he know now disappear within his students. The lecture is very interesting but rather long so you will need to have some free time to listen to it. 



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